Code Veronica X
by Sarah's Knight
Summary: A novelization of the PS2 version of Resident Evil: Code Veronica, only with a noticeable change to the two main characters' names and personalities. Work in progress. I hope you find it entertaining at the very least. Chapter two is now updated.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One –

"_Sarah's Nightmare"_

(Narrator)

"This *_huff_* ... is ... insane! What on Earth am I doing here at this moment?! Why did I choose to give up being an ordinary girl for the sake of all this?! Since when does a description such as 'master spy' appear in my epitaph?!" The girl named Sarah somehow managed to ask herself as she frantically fled her pursuers.

"... Since you had the dire misfortune to accidentally wander into Raccoon City at just the wrong time," the inner Sarah answered for her.

"Oh, right," she laughed, but nervously, and only for a short second, as the recurring warning shots from the guards chasing her snapped her out of her thoughts just as soon as they came. The bullets continued to zoom past threateningly close to her already hurting ears.

"Lucky ... for me .... *_huff huff_* ... even for mere grunts they can't seem to fire a gun straight ...." Sarah breathed out in short gasps as she instinctively ducked her head and bid her tired legs to carry her forward even faster, lest a bullet eventually find its way into her tiny-statured body. "But ... I shouldn't even be here ....! *_pant pant_* I should be lying comfortably on my bed in my residence back at school, munching pizza as I fervently study for an exam, subtly dodging questions from my friends on the phone about whether that cute guy from class really did ask me out last Friday, or ... or something ....!"

She ceased both all movement and these thoughts as she halted dead in her tracks before a large window at the end of the long, moonlit hallway, and stared in wide-eyed horror at the immense mechanical monster that rose up before her on the other side of the window. She caught sight of a wicked flash in the eyes of the helicopter's pilot as he pointedly slammed one finger down on top of what must've been a control panel, and her ears stood erect at the whirring sound of the chain guns at the helicopter's sides warming up in preparation to tear one little girl who stood paralyzed before them to shreds.

"Ohhhh noooooooooooooooooo!!!" The Sarah inside of Sarah screamed, and it was then that she immediately flew into panic mode and turned on her heels, strangely aware all the while that this action had caused the very last barrier to the helpless little nineteen year-old within her to finally crack, and so now she truly was a completely vulnerable target for even the undisciplined men playing soldier behind her. Sarah bolted back the other way a few feet, not catching the startled looks on the faces of her pursuers as they were about to crash right into her, then leapt forward into the hallway to her left, tumbling head over feet a few times as the bullets intended to kill her reacted a little late and ended up tearing into the guards who, unfortunately, were not as nimble as she was and couldn't escape the hallway in time.

_Not as graceful with that move as I used to be_, Sarah thought, slowly rising to her feet and glancing back in shock at her near-death encounter with Umbrella's heartless employees thus far, also feeling a pang of regret at the brutal deaths that her pursuers had just met with. She then glanced sideways at the window beside her to see the helicopter now rush into view and hastily reposition itself for another attempt on her life. No longer even thinking, Sarah used the springs in her ankles to instantaneously thrust herself forward from a kneeling position and into another charging run, her mechanical predator following, shattering the entire line of windows with its gunfire as it ran alongside her from outside the darkened hallway. "Come on .... Just a bit more .... Don't give up, Sarah!" She continuously shouted on the inside as she ran, feeling the heat of the bullets grazing the small pack on her back, but encouraged to see the open doorway at the end of the corridor now only twenty or so yards ahead. She didn't even care where it would lead her to (most likely just more danger, at the rate her luck was going), just as long as it would carry her safely out of the range of that terrible person who wouldn't stop firing at her!

"*_Huff huff_* ........ Yahhhhhh!!!" Sarah screamed, taking one final desperate leap through the doorway into the vast darkness of the unknown room, breathing a heavy sigh of relief (partly from her having missed bouncing on the stairs down) as she stood back up and dusted herself off, shaking some of the past shock away from her head.

But then, as luck would have it, she then glanced up into the darkness before her to see, in a dim cold light some yards away, at least a dozen more uniformed Umbrella military police silently pointing their guns in her direction, which, of course, meant that even with her natural agility she would be easily mowed down if she tried to resist. "Don't shoot! Please don't shoot!" The female college student cried out, dropping her only means of defense and falling to her knees, cringing in terror as she clutched her arms against either side of her head, expecting to be mercilessly shot to pieces regardless of her surrender. "Sarah surrenders peacefully! Sarah surrenders peacefully!"

When nothing happened after a few moments, she fearfully glanced back up and heard one of the guards comment with a sneer, subsequently drawing a round of hearty laughs from his colleagues, "This is the 'dangerous intruder' that's been giving us so much trouble?! She looks no less harmless than a girl scout!"

Sarah then swirled around on her knees upon hearing heavy footsteps on the stairs just above her, but she wasn't able to do much else before the muzzle of a handgun was pressed against her nose. "Don't move," a gruff voice belonging to an equally gruff-looking man commanded her. Tired from being chased around her enemies' headquarters all evening, and too frightened to take up the challenge with her being only one millisecond away from losing a face, Sarah had no thought of doing otherwise.

That was about the last thing Sarah remembered happening to her before she was escorted onto Rockfort Island by the very person who'd caught her back at the Paris facility – Rodrigo something-or-other, if she had remembered his name correctly. When she reopened her eyes from seemed like a long slumber on the cold concrete floor of yet another almost entirely dark room, she also vaguely recalled the cause of her having fallen unconscious like this in the first place. One of the island's prison guards had clubbed her in the back of the head with his rifle after taking her into this cell and removing her handcuffs. A bit irked at this rough treatment, she rose to her feet and glanced this way and that, grimacing as she delicately felt around in her hair for the wound, which, strangely, did not cause her any more pain. She'd guessed that night must have already fallen, since no one else seemed to be in the room guarding her, which meant that she had been sleeping for several hours at least. All at once, the ceiling began to shake violently, sending bits of dust and dirt falling through its many tiny cracks, one of the muddy rivulets landing into her left eye as she gazed curiously upward. "Mmph," she grunted, looking back downward and rubbing the dirt out of her eye with the back of one hand, listening with silent dismay as the sounds of people shouting and guns going off continued to echo faintly from above ground.

"It sounds as though people are fighting up there," she murmured to herself. "But why? Did help from outside come at last and they are attacking the employees of Umbrella that guard this place?"

The only door to the outside of the room swung open, its metal frame bouncing loudly off of the wall to the side, and Sarah gasped – instantly remembering to cover her mouth so as not to be noticed – as a dark, towering figure appeared to stumble into the room with a pain-filled sigh. Her crystal-blue eyes never leaving the intruder, she watched, frozen to the spot, as it lumbered slowly across the room, stopping directly in front of the door to her cell a few feet away, then turning to face her direction. Sarah was in no doubt that, whoever this was, the inscrutable figure's eyes were focused intently on her, though she herself could not see back into them. She wanted to ask, "Who are you?" but found that she was too scared to speak in the bleak hopes that perhaps the figure actually couldn't tell she was there, after all.

After some moments of hesitation, the figure slowly started for the door to Sarah's prison, and her hopes of surviving this encounter were now virtually dashed. Obviously one of the guards had come here to finish her off, perhaps deciding that she was too dangerous to leave alive, what with the commotion she'd managed to cause all by herself back in Paris, and Sarah was fairly certain she wouldn't last two seconds against her opponent in her condition. This notion became especially true when he came close enough for her to make out that he was the same giant of a man that had forcefully dragged her out of the room in cuffs after she'd surrendered herself, to the sadistic amusement of the guards whom had been waiting to ambush her.

Still breathing heavily, as though he'd been wounded in the battle above ground and barely escaped to where she was, Rodrigo fumbled for the keys in his pocket for a few moments, not appearing to notice the apprehensiveness of the girl who fearfully waited on other side of the cell wall all the while. When he finally found the right key to the cell door and opened it, however, Sarah's jailer stood to the side and leaned onto the door for support as he painfully clutched his side, rather than coming inside and strangling her to death with his bare hands like she'd thought he would. Sarah held up the lighter her brother Chris had given her up before her face to get a better look at Rodrigo, and was startled to see that he was looking at her expectantly, even as he grimly masked the pain he was feeling from the mortal wound on his side. She gazed quizzically back at him, still not sure of what he had come for. "A ... are ... you ....?" She tried to stammer out, but Rodrigo had anticipated her question ahead of time.

"Go on, .... you're free to go," her jailer said in his usual gruff, authoritative-sounding voice, not allowing any modicum of sympathy or care to dilute its tone, though Sarah saw this gesture as one of mercy. ".... Although, I really don't see how you are going to be able to escape here alive, the way things are ...."

Though that last remark sounded like bad news for her, Sarah thought it more important to first find out all she could about what sort of dangers were awaiting her up above (if he indeed intended for her to go free as he said), as well as see what she could do about Rodrigo's grievous wound, if possible. As if on cue, Rodrigo began to slump back the other way toward a desk on the opposite side of the room and threw himself down into a chair, looking with some regret at a small bottle he held into his hand for a second and then throwing it with a disgusted grunt across the room. Sarah cautiously stepped out of the cell and stopped about halfway to him, taking a moment to look over at the empty bottle he'd thrown that way. From a few feet away, it appeared to be some sort of hemostatic medicine that he was using.

"What is it?" Rodrigo gloomily spoke up, following her eyes. "Those idiots that attacked us had foolishly let the virus escape in all of the confusion, so no matter what you might be thinking, there's no way you can stop me or yourself from dying in the end, anyway. The entire island must be taken over by those accursed monsters by now."

Almost instantly did Sarah's nightmares of her fateful visit to Raccoon City in order to find Chris come back to chill her blood, and a lot of it showed in her expression as she quickly reached out one hand to the edge of the desk Rodrigo sat at to steady herself. "The T-virus?!" She squeaked out. "H - Here?! And it has contaminated the island?!"

"Yeah .... I'm guessing that's what it was called," he answered softly, studying her face, obviously wondering what sort of horror the T-virus might have created for Sarah and so many others like her in the past. "I'm surprised that you or I have not turned into one of them, already. Most of the guys fighting up there have already fallen victim to the virus, it seems ...."

"So, who was it … that attacked you and your colleagues?" Sarah asked, knowing that all this meant a grave amount of trouble for her in the very near future, already, but not wanting to focus on it all at once; right now, helping Rodrigo was the most important thing.

Rodrigo waved a hand. "Why are you bothering with me? Just go. For what I've already done to you, you surely have no reason to be concerned for me, ... even if I am helping you, now."

Sarah edged a bit closer to the man – whom, as he already said, she could see as nothing more than a sworn nemesis because of her hatred for what he stood for – so she could study his wound a little better as she prepared to launch into the typical kind of heartfelt speech that well represented the core of her very character. "Mr. Rodrigo, ... why must you say it that way? I could not have the heart to leave you like this and actually ... rejoice in the painful and lonely death you may very well suffer if we do not take care of that wound, regardless of whether you were my enemy or not. Besides ...."

Sarah broke off for a moment to see that Rodrigo was staring at her in surprise, mixed in with intent meditation on her words and some admiration for her noble character, as she was speaking. She added in a tinier voice, "… You _are_ helping me by giving me a chance to escape this dreadful place, aren't you? Does that not mean, therefore, that you regret what you've done to me and are trying to repent for the kind of life you have obviously led working under people like them?" And here she nodded in the general direction of the people whom had been still fighting above ground until some moments ago, when everything had fallen silent.

"... I see .... I had been wondering during the entire trip over here how a young and truly fragile-looking woman like yourself seemed to be at the top of Umbrella's hit list, ... but ... now I see that it is because of your strength inwardly that you are able to survive in the face of such danger; it was never that you were actually concealing a devious and self-serving mind or even physical strength behind that innocent face ...." Rodrigo said thoughtfully, though he felt too overwhelmed with guilt to look her directly in the face as he did so. Her kind words were only exposing his shame further. "... Still, I am grateful you feel that way. I do feel regret at what I have been doing all these years following a heartless organization such as Umbrella, who from the battle today alone has proven that it would stomp all over everyone else on the planet so long as it would help to serve the growth of its wealth and power, but what does it matter now? I have already been mortally wounded with nothing left to stop the infection, and you are now surrounded by bloodthirsty monsters with no apparent way to defend yourself. What can you do to help me?

"Look, Miss, your chances of surviving are low enough as it is without you having to burden yourself with me, so please don't worry about me. I will make my peace with all this. There's an airport on the other side of the island. That's probably going to be your only means of leaving, so don't waste any time in getting there, before the other survivors fly off and leave you. I hope you'll find someone who knows a little about flying planes."

"Mr. Rodrigo ...." Sarah looked back towards the room's exit with a sigh, wondering what was planning on greeting her from the other side. She then looked back at him with a sad smile. "... I'll do as you say and try to escape .… But rest assured, I am not just going to leave you to die. If I find anything to treat your wounds, then I am definitely coming back to help you, ... even if you forbid me to!"

Rodrigo's eyes flashed in anger for a moment at her stubbornness, but then he resigned his hard expression and nodded solemnly. "... Okay, I guess there's no arguing with you. But, ... promise me this – that you'll try your best to survive?"

Sarah turned a little red; though she knew there were many people in her life who cared for her so, she was always embarrassed when they showed that concern outwardly. "… It's a promise, Mr. Rodrigo. And thank you, again."

The dark-skinned, large-statured man named Rodrigo nodded once more to let her know he'd understood her, but then slowly leaned backward against the chair and closed his eyes as if to rest. "Good luck to you, kid." He said, not looking at her anymore, but rather at whatever dreams were waiting the back of his eyelids. Sarah hoped they would be pleasant ones, and not the nightmares that he might believe himself to be deserving of suffering for past sins.

She glanced downward at some papers that she'd suddenly noticed on the desk right beside her, thinking it ironic somehow that their contents concerned the names and various data of prisoners that Umbrella had captured and sent to Rockfort Island to live out the rest of their lives in miserable confinement, never to see the outside world or their loved ones again, and even more ironic that the very first names her eyes fell upon were that of her own and the one who had taken her prisoner :

_Prisoner name: Sarah Winters; prisoner I.D. # 409-W-K77Y _

_ Age 19, Gender: female _

_ Sentenced to indefinite confinement at Rockfort Island for crimes of trespass and theft against Paris lab division._

_ Escort: Rodrigo Duvall_

As she softly and carefully closed the door behind her to the room where she had left Rodrigo to rest, and turned back around to bravely set forward into the face of the enormous trial that no doubt waited in front of her, Sarah stopped for a few seconds to hear the faint voice of her former jailer behind her mutter aloud to himself, "Unfortunately, she'll need it."

Just down the entirely darkened hallway and around a corner were a set of steps leading back into the outside world. Hearing the sounds of falling rain, Sarah guessed that she'd just have to bear the added weight of the rain when it would soak into her pigtails, and accept the obvious fact that the ribbons in her hair would soon be ruined and lose their brilliant color. _I suppose that if I manage to escape from this island alive, then I can always buy new ribbons once I make it back home_, she thought, trying to force a brave smile to herself, taking a deep breath and summoning the courage that had been lost to her when she'd been discovered and began to be chased relentlessly throughout Umbrella's lab a few days ago, as she began to ascend the stairs leading to above ground. _Please don't let my nightmares return. Please don't let my nightmares return_ ....

"Whew .... What an ordeal ...." Sarah breathed a sigh of relief, feeling her heart sink only further (though she was now out of danger), staying in place for a few moments to listen to the awful sounds of her ghoulish nightmares hungrily throwing themselves against the other side of the steel door as they tried to recapture their intended dinner in vain. Leaning her shoulders on its frame, she could literally feel an expression of genuine worry cross her face as she thought, _I hope that Sir Rodrigo will be okay. If I remember correctly, he did have a gun with him when he came to rescue me, and there is a closed door separating him from those horrible things, but ... what if they managed to sniff him out and break the door down, catching him off-guard when he is asleep or something? He didn't look to be in much condition to fight, either. Considering his wounds, even I with my much more delicate build would be a better match for the monsters roaming this island _....

Still, because she promised she wouldn't worry herself with him over her own life until she had at least secured a way off the island for herself first, Sarah knew that Rodrigo would much rather have her keep going forward than turn back and begin coddling him silly (which she knew very well in her heart that she would do). After looking around the vast empty space of the inner compound, and brushing away some of the unpleasantly icy rain that had gathered in excess on her eyebrows, Sarah stepped carefully over the incinerated body of whoever it was that had been piloting the helicopter and had fallen out of the cockpit when it had crashed through the compound wall, and peeked timidly around the nose of the helicopter to check for zombies in the vicinity, .... only to scream and leap backward against its side when a blinding light fell upon her entire body and yet another crazed lunatic began mercilessly shooting at her!

Scrambling to her knees and flattening herself as far as possible against her mechanical shield as bullets continued to raze the ground only a few feet away, Sarah glanced downward at the corpse who still lay motionless at her feet and saw that it was clutching a handgun. There was no way she could hope to make it if she tried to dash across the compound; Sarah would have to rely on the piercing eyesight that luckily was inherent in the Winters family and pray that it was enough to overcome her attacker's advantage in firepower. Looking back over her shoulder in the general direction that the light was coming from as she reached to pull a clip from the knapsack at her back and hastily jammed it into the gun's barrel, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and waited on edge for the narrow window of opportunity she would have to fight back when the chain gun would exhaust itself. When the beam of light stopped wavering and began to sweep around the compound again, and she could no longer hear the sounds of bullets, Sarah set her face into an expression of grim determination and whipped around out into the open, landing smoothly on the toes of her light-weighted cloth boots and raising her gun towards the searchlight. She fired three times, hoping she wasn't inadvertently injuring her attacker, lest it was absolutely necessary to her survival.

"Ahh! They can wield conventional weapons, too?!" She heard the startled cry of a young man who couldn't possibly be any greater in age than herself, and then, somehow from her position several meters away, the sounds of that same young man throwing himself into hiding and panting with fevered sweat. Sarah guessed that this most likely wasn't someone from Umbrella, but she wasn't about to take any action that would enlarge on a mere hunch of hers, despite her rare gift to hone the correct instincts when in any sort of danger.

"Who are you?!" She gathered the courage to yell out to the stranger hiding in the guard tower, inching back towards the cover of the wrecked helicopter should he intend to resume attacking her for some reason.

Through the heavily falling rain, she kept her gaze focused as best as she could on the empty black space in the guard tower where she assumed his face would show up, and soon enough a boyish head covered in shabby brown hair with hazel-colored eyes just beneath slowly rose up into view. "... What? A little girl?" A voice emanated almost clearly through the rainfall from that direction. Sarah blinked once in surprise to hear that the voice was not at all hostile or suspicious in tone, but rather was fairly soft-spoken and romantically articulate, seemingly marred with traces of both an avid concern for others and innumerable questions of conflicting self-doubt. Nevertheless, she held her weapon at bay with one outstretched arm, fearful that naivety and trust were bound to eventually prove something other than the saviors of the day.

"Yes!" She called back, slightly exasperated at what every last person who crossed her path seemed to automatically regard her as. "I suppose that in all regards 'little girl' does indeed fit me best! … So, you aren't from Umbrella, nor one of their creations?"

"Not at all! As far as I am aware, I haven't turned into a monster, ... yet!" The voice belonging to the male stranger answered, sounding a little relieved. "I see that it must have been a great error in my judgment to have tried to shoot you, so I beg your apology! Allow me to come down and meet you face-to-face, if you would!"

Sarah thought it best to say nothing else after that (not until she could better determine whether the young man was friend or enemy, anyway), so she simply shifted her weight to the other foot a little and wordlessly waited for him to approach her. She could not help but allow her former fear and suspicion to take control of both her facial expression and the words that next escaped her throat when the rather small-statured, cloaked form of her attacker came within a few feet of her and reached up to delicately brush aside the gun she was holding up to his face, as well as state simply, "I truly am sorry for having done that, Miss, but, please try to understand why I felt inclined to shoot first and ask questions later under the circumstances ...."

"... Shut up!" She suddenly cried out in what she felt was her "little girl" voice, actually feeling a lot more surprised at her own hostile words than the young man looked. "If you make any funny moves I'll have no choice but to shoot!"

Alarm might have been present in the stranger's eyes for just a fleeting moment, but ultimately he just smiled consolingly at Sarah's blatantly pitiful attempt to look aggressive and fierce before him, and he said simply, "Please, Miss, I meant no harm. I honestly do not wish for a girl as pretty and seemingly gentle as yourself to be so angry with me."

Much against her will, Sarah felt her face turn red yet again and the last of whatever emotional defenses she had left broken, and she dropped her face with a sigh, resigning herself to cease putting up brave fronts and letting her raised arm lower itself away from where it was held threateningly up at the stranger's serious-looking face.

_Ahhh, ... I suppose I could not find it in my heart to continue showing coldness to a man who speaks so sweetly as that to me, and it didn't seem to be part of some macho act on his part, either_, she thought, looking back up at him with a grateful expression for the seemingly sincere praise. _So he couldn't be such a bad guy. Besides, he wasn't fooled by my hostility at all; no idiot could be inclined to quail in fear before such a pathetic attempt to show boldness rather than whole-hearted vulnerability and trust as that was, at least when I try to do so in the high-pitched voice of a small child. I really am about as harmless as a nine-year-old girl scout, just as that ungentlemanly Umbrella grunt had said of me_.

"I'm sorry, too," Sarah's said softly, adjusting one of the ribbons in her hair and then holding out her right hand, trying to smile with impossible friendliness. "I didn't mean to act that way .... And I must admit that I am quite flattered by your gracious praise just now, Mr. – ah ...."

"... William, the name's William," the man named William answered, accepting her hand, and, to Sarah, openly revealing from the demeanor of both his eyes and his voice that the young man he seemed to be was a mere boy even younger in age than she. "I was taken prisoner on this island by Umbrella – just as you were, if I assume correctly."

"Yes, that's right," she said, suddenly feeling pity for the young man upon his admitting to being a victim of the same tyrannical grip that she was. "I'm glad to meet you, Mr. William. I honestly thought that the chances of my finding another living soul in this dreadful place – especially one who wouldn't wish me dead – weren't exactly tipped in my favor. If you are intent on escaping like I am, then perhaps we might cooperate together towards achieving that purpose?"

"Hmmm," William closed one eye and lightly scratched at one strand of hair that had fallen over his left eyebrow. "That does seem like the logical decision; I certainly could not in good conscience leave a lady out here alone to fend for herself. Besides, I myself must admit that I would be grateful to have a friend at my side to help me carry this burden, as well."

"Wellllll," the female university student beamed, half-teasing, but also thinking this new friend very sweet for what he'd said. "Aren't you the proper gentleman, Mr. William? There's not too many left who are as valiant as you seem to appear." Then, she hastily added with blushing modesty, "Not that I could know for sure whether or not most young men are different from yourself, since I don't exactly have them eagerly flocking to my side."

"So you say," A little amused, William appeared to ponder this over inwardly as he spoke. "I find that rather difficult to believe, .... but I suppose my pursuing that subject should wait until later. I'm afraid that I don't even yet know your name, Miss."

"Oh! My gosh, I'm forgetting my manners, aren't I? M - My name is Sarah, ... Sarah Winters; biology-student-turned-unlikely-beast-slaying-heroine extraordinare, at your service!"

1William smiled, obviously thinking well of her for her witty introduction, or so Sarah had hoped. "Sarah ...." he mused. "That's a pretty name."

"Thank you," she began to gaze somewhat down at the ground, tapping the tip of one foot against the muddy ground, wondering if it was possible that, instead of naturally being overly polite and considerate towards women, this young man simply suffered from an excessive amount of testosterone in his system.

".... Back to the matter at hand, you, um, ... wouldn't happen to know of a way we _could_ escape off of this island, do you? I've only been blindly running about trying to dodge those bizarre creatures ever since the battle broke out up here," William sniffed, becoming absorbed into his own thoughts as he spoke. "What were those things, anyway? What's going on around here?"

Sarah wanted to help this potential new friend understand all of what was going on around the two of them at this moment – what Umbrella had obviously been doing to terrorize every part of the world it held dominion over – despite how much she didn't want to think about any of it, herself. After all, what known human being wouldn't be both frightened and confused when thrown into a situation as unrealistic as a virus outbreak that turned everything it touched into a monster, if not driven completely over the edge? Still, she wasn't certain if it would be all right to allow _anyone_ the same kind of knowledge she had come to possess of the evils that one pharmaceutical enterprise was single-handedly causing. "You probably weren't expecting any real answer to that, Mr. William, but I think I might be able to tell you what the general problem is," she said, after a moment's thought. "A very deadly form of virus developed by the ones who have taken us prisoner here, that turns normal humans into the homicidal creatures you've no doubt already become acquainted with, has been allowed to loose its destructive power on this entire island. That's about all I can understand about Umbrella, but ... it would appear that some other unidentifiable group has attacked them – although whether they were here to help us or steal the virus itself from Umbrella is anyone's guess – and in the middle of the battle someone threw a grenade into the wrong room."

"... I see," William looked as though he were finding it hard to believe, but couldn't see there being any other possible explanation for the freakish terrors he had already run into before crossing paths with Sarah.

"All that matters to me at the moment, however," Sarah chose to clarify, before he might develop any suspicions of her, "is our getting out of this in one piece, as well as helping anyone else we come across do the same. There must be some others still alive around here who are trapped or wounded, and therefore helpless to do anything on their own."

"Agreed."

"... And as to our means of escape, one of the prison guards who was kind enough to free me from my cell had informed me that an airport lies on the other side of the island, .... which brings me to an important question, Mr. William. You wouldn't by any chance in your tender age happen to possess just a small degree of piloting skill, would you?"

Much to her relief, William smiled upon hearing this question, the outcome of whose reply was indeed most critical to their survival but nevertheless asked in a light-hearted fashion. "Lucky for us, I think I can do well enough to get us out of here without crashing. I guess it is even luckier that the effects of this 'virus' appeared to have wore off by the time we came out of hiding in our cells, huh?"

_At least so far neither of us are showing signs of deteriorating of the flesh or growing impossibly long claws_, Sarah thought to herself. _We can only hope that this particular piece of good news persists_. Then out loud, she said, "We should begin looking for this place right away, then, Mr. William."

William blinked once, his smile suddenly fading into a solemn expression. "Let us go, then," he said simply, turning away and beginning a slow walk toward the large gate on the north wall of the compound, his strange black cape billowing about him.

"Yes, let's go!" Sarah happily echoed, failing to interpret William's meaningful expression in her sudden burst of excitement at the thought of possibly making it out of this nightmare alive after all, and she was about to run ahead of her new friend and grab him by the hand as she went past to hurry him along, however he turned and held out a hand to stop her.

"Wait, please, Miss Sarah," he spoke, a purely serious glow in his eyes. "I .... We really should not go together."

"Huh? But why do you say that?" Sarah cringed back a little from him, wondering if she had unknowingly said or done something to offend him and cause him to not wish for her company. "Sh - Shouldn't we stay together at such a critical time? It will be dangerous enough as it is without us trying to each get through this, alone. We must work through this, together, don't you think so?"

"... Yes, I do," he replied, looking as though he did not want to say what he was about to speak next. "And I most certainly will not leave you alone if you really do not want me to, but, we must face the reality that the monsters around us could easily get us if we are ever surrounded or taken by surprise, whether we're each by ourselves _or_ both together. I hate to sound so depressing, yet … it would be better for just one of us to be lost than both, if that were to happen."

Sarah hated having to hear something like that. She hated all that was going on around her at this very moment, hated that things as terrible as this had to happen to her or anyone else. …. Her friend was right, of course. Their odds would be bad no matter what if they ran into several monsters at once. She ... just didn't want to have to face the reality of it, that was all, because William was having to be so cynical-minded in order to be realistic.

"I ... guess that's true," she admitted, looking down. "Besides, this cannot be such a big place. I'll still run into you and anyone else we might be able to help quite a bit, right?"

"Of course, I will only go off on my own with your complete consent, Miss Sarah," William assured her. "I can understand if you would be too afraid to be by yourself; ... heck, I find it amazing that either of us can keep ourselves together even now. What we've gotten ourselves mixed up in is not your typical horror film, after all."

"Thanks, but, now that you've brought up such a genuine point – and indeed it is depressing to hear – I feel that our working cooperatively but separately might be best," Sarah looked back longingly in the direction of the prison compound where she'd left Rodrigo, using one hand to wring out some rain that had gathered along her pigtails. "I happen to be a little tougher than I look, and I've already dealt with a good scare from those zombies just before I ran into you, ... so I think I'll be able to handle myself."

William followed her gaze. "A tougher girl than you initially appear, hmm?" He echoed. "I suppose I should believe you. All right, then, let's split up and begin searching for the way to open that gate over there. I'm certain our means of escape lies just beyond. …. I know this may sound really stupid and meaningless for me to say in our situation, but please be careful while we're apart, okay?"

"I will," she nodded, suddenly remembering something. "You are – ... you've found a means of defending yourself against 'them', haven't you?"

William half-smiled, reaching into his cloak. He held out a handgun that looked similar to the one Sarah had nearly shot him with just moments ago. "'Doesn't make me feel much safer than without one, but it's probably about as good as we'll be able to do against them. And, I suppose you'll be okay, yourself, huh? You handle dangerous weapons with quite exceptional skill for a young girl."

Sarah blushed. "Sorry again, ... about earlier," she said, hastily hiding her hand behind her back, trying to look innocent. "'Guess I should keep my weapons in better check, in the case that you take me by surprise the next time you find me, shouldn't I? Perhaps I'll just be putting this in a safer place ...." Here she tucked the gun she'd been holding into the white scarf that she wore around her waist. William quickly turned the other way, as though Sarah were instead about to raise her skirt a little in order to hide the weapon underneath her stockings, though she didn't notice him doing so. "... And I will simply try to rely on my bare hands to fend off the zombies."

"Whichever suits you best to protect yourself, my dear," William turned back around after a moment, giving her a shy smile. "Good luck." And off he ran in the direction of the gate in the east wall of the compound, at one point turning his head one last time to glance reassuringly at her.

Sarah stared after him until he disappeared to the other side of the high metal wall, then gazed around to try to decide on where she herself should go next to search for this key that he had earlier mentioned, and finally down at her right hand, which she found to be already be outstretched, palm facing upward. After a moment, she clenched her fist so tightly that lines of blue began to lace around her wrists, and she wondered if she even possessed the physical strength to be able to save herself should those monsters ever successfully lure her into a trap where she'd be completely surrounded by a hungry pack of them. _But these poor devils were once humans too, just like me_, she thought. _They were simply not as blessed as I was to be able to escape infection time and again, that's all. Can I really try to fight them again, as I once did, even if it is simply to save my own life and protect my innocent friends? … I hope Mr. William comes to realize this, too – that he won't start acting like any other boy his age probably would and get too trigger-happy when he meets up with those awful creatures, because the ones whom will attack him are people, themselves, ... just people that became victims of a cruel and terrible fate, and no longer even have the mental freedom to realize what they are doing_.

Sarah sighed, shaking her head a little, trying to clear her mind of all such confusing, depressing thoughts; they weren't helping her to stay on her guard against danger, and that was precisely all that surrounded her from every side, so long as she remained anywhere on this island. "I'd better stay on Mr. William's heels for a while," she said to herself, "just to make certain that he'll be all right by himself." And so she set off in the same direction as her mysterious new companion had gone.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two –

"Sarah's Rain"

Sarah squinted hard through the steadily increasing heaviness of rainfall, trying to make out the dark, obscure shape at the end of the corridor. At first she thought it might be the boy with whom she had just run into not ten minutes ago, Will, but then she immediately discarded that notion (he had to have ventured farther than that on this side of the prison compound) and took a few small, cautious steps forward in hopes of seeing better.

Then: Perhaps another zombie, she imagined. The figure appeared to move across the width of the rainy hallway with the slow, sluggish gait of the undead, but if so, the shape of the figure moved so low in her field of vision that the zombie must have been using its hands to crawl on its belly – and somewhat away from Sarah, not toward.

After a moment, the dark blot disappeared into the side of the long, sloping building on Sarah's immediate right, and hardly another second passed before a new shape appeared in the former's stead. After another moment's scrutiny, the college girl raised her face to a taut, watchful level, and lowered her right hand to the handgun that she had tucked into her makeshift dress belt as she began to curiously edge further down the corridor, in the direction of the far shadow in the rain. It moved rather clumsily like the first figure, yet with a more pointed, sure-minded gait, … and this time in an oncoming direction. If it isn't a crawling zombie ….

After a few steps, Sarah's delicate ears perked like an elf's to a dull, rumbling sort of sound through the clash of the rain – rain which, in the young girl's growing frantic mind, now both sounded and felt like it held the consistency of spear-like shards of glass. She stopped immediately, her forward foot digging hard into the gravel. Pit-pat, pit-pat, PIT-PAT, PIT-PAT ….! Then came the sounds of what could only be the wet paws of a mammalian creature upon the concrete ground in the distance.

The shape was fast growing larger, and Sarah wasn't about to wait for it come close enough to become positively identifiable. It was a guard dog that had become a carrier – just like the stray dogs she had once had the immense shock and displeasure of being assaulted by in large, deadly packs on the disease-ridden streets of the gloomy Raccoon City that fateful night last September – of that she was already certain.

Sarah wasted no time. She glanced fervently to her left, finding nothing more than a high compound wall that even someone as gracefully athletic as she could not possibly hope to scale without due concentration. However, in a pinch, she looked back right to see a short concrete staircase that lead up to a metal door in the side of the sloping building, on a raised platform. The would-be heroine quickly decided that she would worry about what was on the other side of the doorway when she came bursting through it, and so she leaped and swung her tiny-statured body through the gap in the staircase railing, tearing open the door as soon as her hand could possibly reach it in mid-swing.

She slammed it shut behind her, not daring to turn and glance at the animal-like figure approaching from behind, and let herself momentarily fall back in relief against the steel frame, inherently unperturbed to feel a hard thump from the other side of the door not two seconds later, followed by a snarl and the loud, overpowering sound of fierce barking. Yup, whatever it was that had been running at Sarah in the outside corridor was definitely a virus carrier, just like everything else that moved and breathed in this entire godforsaken place.

After a few heavy breaths, Sarah came to her senses, remembering the truth of her past thought – that zombies and homicidal creatures of alien-looking caliber were all around the island, with likely just her and Will left as the only truly animate beings for a hundred miles around that did not fall into either of the two preceding categories – and upon that realization came its very confirmation with her detection of an awful stench followed by a long, shuffling sound that could only have belong to those who are walking but no longer living. And the chilling sounds of mummified feet dragging the ground were only amplified in their effect by the dull squeak of the single dusty fan overhead as it continued to revolve lazily around.

Sarah, determined not to panic, glanced left to see a former human shamble out from behind the counter of what must be a kitchen to this particular prison block. Her shining blue eyes met simultaneously with the zombie's listless white own as it took notice of the still-living girl in the room with it and reached out wantingly for her with decaying arms, its prison rags hanging from them in tatters. It slowly pivoted on one, then two feet, not even aware of the basic human movement, and proceeded in her direction. By now, unless under attack by complete surprise, Sarah was immune to panic or disarray in this kind of situation (an unimaginable feat that had led her to earlier make the nervous quip to Will of referring to herself as a monster-slaying supergirl), and this zombie was separated from her by at least a short flight of steps and a large wooden dining table in the center of the room, besides.

Worried about not being able to find ammunition elsewhere with which to defend herself in possible future encounters, yet concerned with the moral conundrum of leaving the tortured human to continue wandering the land of the living without a soul, Sarah hesitantly raised her Beretta and shot three times, slowly, allowing herself to redirect her aim to the zombie's skull after each kick from the gun in a gracious effort to make the "kill" clean but painless. She only hoped that carriers were so far-gone from their humanity that they could not even feel the fiery-hot pain of having a bullet tear harshly through their barely-functioning brains.

After the third shot it collapsed with a detached moan, indicating to Sarah that, fortunately for it, the zombie could no more sense being shot in the most vital part of its body any more than it could sense the taste of living human blood that it was doomed to crave. The dual-pony-tailed college girl sighed sympathetically and proceeded forward through the lone door in the adjacent wall from the prison block's entrance, further into the building.

Unlike in the dining area, with its lone undead inhabitant and creaking ceiling fan that no one had ever bothered to turn off, it was deathly quiet in the small, narrow barracks that were on the other side of the door, … but the terrible, unholy stench that always followed the presences of the non-living was far stronger here, so much that Sarah could not help but retch and immediately clasp both hands over her tiny nose and mouth, dropping her gun in the so doing. It clattered noisily to the floor and somewhat under the low bunk on her left side, causing the girl to wince further for fear of possibly attracting zombies who might have been waiting nearby in the cursed silence.

She opened her eyes again after a few moments, staring furtively down the narrow corridor that served as the prison barracks in front of her for a passing while, then, convinced that she was safe for the time being, retrieved the Beretta and walked steadily past the rows of neat and tidy bunks that lined the hallway on either side of her.

Again, there was strangely only one corpse present in the entire immediate area, and it was sprawled among the beds, hanging threateningly over the edge to her left by its waist, with apparently only the harsh, grating threads of the worn, dark-green wool that served as the sheets for each bed to hold it in place from falling all the way over. Curiously, the corpse held the appearance of indicating downward with one, outstretched hand at the cold stone floor, where lay a worn, slightly blood-stained diary. As she had grown accustomed to doing – always fearing that ignoring the tendency would somehow result in her sad demise at some point in the near future – Sarah obeyed her irrational gut instinct to take the time to read this random piece writing she had just happened to glance downward at, in the improbable case that its contents contained something important for her to mentally retrieve in a pinch later on. She glanced once more down the rows of beds to the open doorway at the other end of the room to reassure herself one last time that no inhabitant of this depressing room still walked, then she began to flip meticulously through the filthy, brittle pages.

May 13th

This room's atmosphere is awash with death. Based upon the information I have found so far, I believe I may be very far south of the equator, now.

Lucky for me that Robert, in the bunk below mine, is one of those … interesting types of guys.

May 16th

Robert told me some crazy story of why he was put in this godforsaken place with me. He said that he used to be an attendant of the person who heads the entire prison. This "boss", named Alfred, supposedly condemned Robert to this prison because of a tiny little mistake.

What does that mean? What's going to happen to me?

May 20th

Without forewarning, a group of military men took Robert to that creepy-looking building behind the guillotine cage. They did not say why, but at midnight, I intend to sneak out and see him.

I've been hearing that anyone taken to that particular building never comes back, and on top of that, there are these really large burlap bags constantly being carried out of that place. I'd better pray hard for Robert ….

May 21st

Wrong, again. I should never have gone there. What is going on that place? All I could hear was someone laughing insanely mixed in with what sounded like Robert screaming! I don't know what to do, and I cannot get the memory of having visited that madhouse out of my head.

Is what is happening to Robert going to eventually happen to me? I just can't

allow it …. I just can't.

May 27th

Since my last entry, all of my fellow inmates have been taken away to that building. I am the only one left in these barracks, now. The ominous silence in this empty room is nothing more than a recurring testament that soon enough I, too, will disappear.

I am next to go.

I just know that we were all put here to be this Alfred guy's helpless guinea pigs. There's no way out of this, either. What am I going to do?

Mad experiments, huh? Dear Lord, she thought. … 'Hope whoever was responsible for the continued disappearance of the prisoners isn't still around in living form, 'else I could very well become the next lab rat. She did, after all, fear running into Umbrella executives (or anyone on their payroll, period, for that matter) as much as she did the horrifying, deadly results of their mad experiments, for the very fact that they still held human thought and reason, in contrast to monsters like the violent dogs and the creeping, inside-out creatures she had encountered on the night of her nightmarish field trip to Raccoon City a few months ago. It had been another human, after all – and one wearing the same prized badge of law enforcement that her big brother Chris wore with pride, at that – who had been just seconds away from ending Sarah's life with a simple bullet through her brain in his blood-soaked, dreadful torture chamber where there had been clear evidence of former victims fallen to Chief Irons secret, deranged wiles.

Sarah, ever mindful of respecting the dead, gently placed the diary down near the side of the hanging corpse who was no doubt its departed owner, and, one hand back on the Beretta at her hip, she ventured further into the barracks. As she reached the T-intersection just through the open doorway, a loud rasp to her right caused the student-turned-super-heroine to jump and frantically draw her gun at the small window a few feet away. A moth-eaten, sunken face stared eyelessly at her from the other side as it beat uselessly against the windowpane; obviously all this time a zombie had been waiting quietly outside the window until a survivor of the recent T-virus outbreak would happen across the area.

Sarah was afraid of drawing the attention of other nearby carriers while she was wandering inside such tight spaces as these barracks, so she replaced the Beretta to her waist belt and turned her attention to the left of the intersection, instead. Just around the corner was the bath house, which turned out to be an even more depressing sight to her than the bedding area, as there were probably four or five times the quantity of blood splattered about the walls and floor of the open, dimly lit room. Of the four corpses present, one was dressed differently than the rest, which led her to believe that this person had in his former life been guard rather than prisoner. Sure enough, as Sarah drew in a breath and ventured cautiously across the bath house to where the particularly brutalized corpse in guardsman garb lay sprawled in classic horror-movie-victim fashion against the wall, her ever-observant eyes spotted a pair of M-100's loosely clutched in either of its hands.

Jackpot! She thought, although with a small shudder of remorse-laced disgust at having to kneel so close to the horrifying bloody wreck that had once been a normal, human creature in order to claim such a prize. Sarah's blood froze solid when, at seemingly lightning speed, a withered hand shot out and clutched her wrist with surprising strength, and not one second later a small part of the girl's bewildered mind registered the sound of shattering glass from somewhere behind her.

It didn't take much of a sense of ill timing for Sarah to realize that the zombie she had passed by at the window in the intersecting hall just moments ago had finally managed to break inside. But she could not afford to worry about that particular problem just yet, … not with another, freshly transformed zombie's teeth now just inches away from her exposed wrist. "Let me GO!" She cried, trying to pull away from the chilling grasp of pale, skeletal fingers, knowing very well that her captor no longer held the human ability to register and understand her demands. After three attempts to pull away on her knees with little success, the zombie finally came close enough to make a lunge for the girl's pale, lovely forearm with an open, almost yawning mouth. Sarah decided to stop uselessly attempting to inch away at a kneeling position, and instead sprang to her feet, feeling another wave of horror when the zombie's grasp nearly halted her momentum on her way to a standing position and she thought for a split second that her balance would be lost and cause her to fall back down, at which point she would almost certainly be pinned by her aggressively cannibalistic attacker.

Instead, Sarah managed to rise up far enough to a height where she could finally shake off the still-crawling zombie's hand, and with her now free hand she pulled the Beretta from her belt. With nerve-wracked fingers she swiveled the barrel downward at the vulnerable zombie's skull, rapidly pulling the trigger at least four times in her mad panic. At that close a range, even with her trembling hands holding the gun she could scarcely miss, and the crawling corpse dropped its raised head back down to the polished, tiled floor with a sickening thud, hopefully never to rise a third time.

The hapless nineteen-year-old student swiftly darted downward at an angle to the corpse to nab the still-working M-100's from its person, and without any second thought she hastily threw them into her knapsack and sprinted back out of the bath house area and around the corner to the previous T-intersected hallway. Unfortunately for Sarah, she had completely forgotten that the zombie she'd seen at the window had been aggravated enough at the sight of a human to find the strength to break through the glass and crawl inside with her. And so, before she knew it, she had rounded the corner of the hall and practically hurled herself right into the eager zombie's outstretched arms in a near-fatal spectacle that, Sarah later reflected, might as well have comically begun with the small-statured girl preemptively embroidering the words "dinner plate special" on her hair ribbons.

With a throaty moan and an expulsion of dust from its mouth that stung the surprised girl's delicate eyes, the monster immediately clutched Sarah to it and swept its head around instinctively to the base of her neck, what was left of its decaying teeth bared. Though initially shocked, Sarah was one to gather her wits quickly enough and in the frame of just one full second she had wrenched out of her attacker's grasp, by swiveling herself bodily out to one side, then in the next fluent motion turned and lunged forward, away from the recovering zombie, using her center of gravity to throw one foot upward and behind her in a powerful mule kick to the hideous thing's solar plexus.

As she had expected, upon turning back around Sarah saw that the former human had not registered any sort of crippling pain from such a powerful blow (although she had heard and felt a few weathered ribs snap), but it had been thrown backwards at least a few feet, enough distance to give her the time she needed to stage her next attack. She leaned forward a little, broke into a feigning charge to give herself momentum, somersaulted once and, as her feet reached their full height into the air in mid-leap, her high-laced boots firmly grasped the zombie by the neck in a surprisingly deadly (at least for such a little girl) vice. With an expert twist, its neck was broken and the corpse returned to the unmoving, unbreathing state that it was meant to, falling soundlessly forward, its skull clattering the dirty stone floor at Sarah's feet as she swiftly returned to an upright position.

Not one to pass up careful observation if she could help it, Sarah forced her breathing to return to normal, and she walked forward and around to the doorway that led back to the row of beds, gazing with speculation from afar at the solitary corpse of the prisoner who had probably written the desperate entries in the diary she had poured through a few minutes ago. … Thankfully, it did not take the opportune moment to follow the example of its nearby companion from the other side of the wall, in the bath house area, by rising up to meet the human girl who had come to visit the site of its supposed eternal rest. There could be no doubt, however, that she was sure to suffer more close calls like this when it came to encountering the undead before the night would be over, and she only prayed that – while her body might well endure any possible wounds inflicted upon it if she continued to react to the given situation wisely and quickly – even her young, healthy heart could survive the repeated shocks and scares.

With a mental shaking of the finger to herself, Sarah made a note to proceed with extreme caution out of the prison block in case that one zombie dog was still hanging about outside, and she pointedly left this last depressing site of one of her numerous terrifying brushes with the Reaper, knowing well that even with such a brief and momentary visit, like all of the many others that had highlighted her trail through Raccoon City back in September, she wouldn't forget a single square inch of the place for as long as she lived.

Upon closing the door behind her (and activating the latch too in the off-chance that zombies had somehow discovered the neural sense to use doorknobs as of late), Sarah whirled around and took a sudden, cautious step backward on one foot when a faded, blinking light caught the edge of her vision. There was a high bookshelf separating the two sides of the U-shaped office, and the light was coming from beyond it.

Is there someone here? Sarah wondered to herself, then nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard a sound like something rolling along a hard wooden floor, followed by the light click! of the hammer being pulled back on a handgun. (There was no mistaking a sound like that when one's older brother was a veteran in the career field of law enforcement.) The ribbon-haired girl did not move for several seconds, until: "Miss? … Miss, uh, … Sarah?" A small voice called out uncertainly.

Sarah finally released her held breath. "Yeah, it's me," she responded, walking around and glancing a little timidly out from behind the end of the high shelf in the room to that Will had been waiting for her.

"Oh, that's a relief," said the boy in the strange dark cloak, smiling apologetically at her and placing the gun he'd had with him back on the desk he was sitting at. "I'm sorry about having possibly scared you like that. But the way things are, I could not immediately know whether it was a normal human being or a homicidal beast with five horns coming through that door. I hope you understand."

"Yes, I can empathize with that, certainly," Sarah said grimly, brushing aside some hair as she came up to the back of the rolling desk chair where Will was sitting. A worn PC monitor flickered lightly in front of Will's pinched face, its pale blue light seeming to only enhance his expression of intense concentration. He turned his head only once, only far enough around to give her a sidelong glance, then turned his attention back to whatever it was he had been studying on the monitor. The female university student thought it best to just wait patiently for her fellow survivor to speak first.

"… Chris … Winters," he mused after a few moments, laying emphasis on the last name. Sarah took one step forward, closer to the monitor, her attention now fully caught. "A relative of yours, lady?"

Sarah answered, a little worriedly, "Yes, he's my elder brother. Why do you ask?"

Will swiveled around in his chair, now facing her with a very grave expression on his face, although there was an obvious touch of sneering cynicism. "Well, delighted to find a PC that still works in spite of the electricity being cut in half of the area, I have been up to some modest hacking work. I thought I might retrieve a layout of the island for us, if anything that we might find the airport more quickly. Here's a copy for you." He lifted a large, folded piece of paper from his lap and held it out to Sarah, who accepted it with a curious look on her face.

The girl could not quite understand why, as this terrible place would have eventually claimed her cold, maggot-ridden corpse had Rodrigo never given her the chance for freedom, but she held a tiny bit of curiosity to explore the mysterious domain that seemed as though it would forever be ironically shrouded in nightfall since the outbreak occurred. Maybe she had some irrational need to prove to Will and every other creature – living or dead – on the island that a little girl like Sarah could brave the dark places and the monsters waiting within them and not break down from fear.

"The sooner we can get out of here, the better," Will finished.

Sarah nodded off-handedly, still studying the simple exterior of the island's layout. She noted that she had begun her adventure about an hour ago from a specially-made group of cells in the southwest part (obviously even the younger sister of the Winters family was considered that bothersome a gnat to Umbrella), with the entire southern hemisphere of the island serving as the prison complex. On the map, of the two vaguely square-shaped areas composing the northern hemisphere, each one about as large in area as the prison complex itself, Sarah decided that she would venture to the area in the far north next, which was indicated to be the residence of an Umbrella executive named Alfred Ashford – a man, she remembered, that the author of the diary she'd found in the prison barracks had written in almost frantic fear of. The airport's location wasn't marked, but it could only be likely odds that she and Will would be able to find something in this residence or the area around it that would bring them closer to their goal ('Probably another key, she thought dryly, with a slight curling of her lips). There was a long ways to go for them both, though, and probably a dozen or more monsters waiting to end their journey along the way. Sarah folded the map into fourths, placed it into a small side compartment of her backpack, then looked back at Will with an expression that he should continue what he had meant to explain about her brother Chris.

"A locked folder on the owner's personal hard drive caught my eye a few minutes before you came through the door," Will said, with a side nod at the screen behind him, "and after some digging around the desk drawers for the password, this is all of the personal information that I found about a cop from Raccoon City, Illinois named Chris Winters. It appears he is just one of many people in the world that the Umbrella Corporation has under close surveillance."

Sarah did not immediately panic. After the crusade against Umbrella's inhumane crimes that her brother had started back in June, she had to have come to expect that some of the most powerful leaders behind the terrible incident Chris was helping to expose would at the very least be watching him closely, ensuring that he wouldn't step too far out of bounds. Sarah just sighed, not sure of what to do or how to respond to the speculative look that Will was giving her.

"There must be a little more to an ordinary-looking girl like yourself than one would imagine," Will spoke up after a few moments, scratching an eyebrow, when Sarah could think of nothing to say. "I mean, you don't look a day older than me, and I can't help but assume that you come from an entire family of people who get themselves wrapped up into trouble with powerful forces like Umbrella, Inc. If you are hiding anything about yourself from me, lady, just know that you have no obligation to do so. Besides, your face alone right now tells me a lot about a conflict within you. I do not know what it is, but … you can trust me. I will help you in any way that I can. Just please do not hesitate to reveal what is on your mind at the moment, or important things you know of about the conflict we're involved in if it can help us, okay?"

Sarah scrunched her nose, thinking it odd that it was someone other than her giving the heroic speech for once, and directing it at her. But this kid she had bumped into was right to say so; she did need help, and she did not need to act as though she had never been caught up in a crazed nightmare, just like this one, before, either. She nodded, with a slight smile at Will. "… Then I will not hide this; have you found whether or not the Internet service here is still intact? If so, then I need to send a message to Mr. Leon right away and warn him that Chris is being watched, in case what you say implies Leon as well. I … am still looking for my brother, actually." For some reason, Sarah believed in the sincerity of Will's words so much that, on impulse, she now felt very comfortable telling him things like this about her. With all of the danger that her life had come to revolve around, it would be a welcome relief just to be able to release the secrets she felt that she was now carrying with her to someone else – another human being who empathized. The former humans who lurked all around outside certainly couldn't.

The brown-haired boy stood, allowing Sarah to take his place in the desk chair so that she could type her message to Leon. As Sarah began hurriedly using the mouse to search all around the computer's desktop for the Internet browser, and, once found, began to gracefully run her slender fingers across the unusually clean, well-maintained keyboard as she typed, Will walked slowly over to the nearby steel door (on the opposite wall from the door he and Sarah had first entered the office through) and began to impatiently drum on the door's remote locking mechanism with all five fingers. As Sarah was nearing the end of composing her message to the friend named Leon, who she had been keeping in close contact with ever since the adventure through Raccoon City that they had found themselves thrown together into a few months back, Will spoke up from behind her, in a facetious tone just subtle enough for his naive female companion to fail to catch. "In that case, if this Leon character does happen to be privy to your brother's whereabouts, then why not send the island's coordinates to him as well? Perhaps Chris as your 'big brother' will come to the rescue the minute he hears of his sister's predicament."

A white light could suddenly be seen in this dark tunnel, one that Sarah was not the least bit afraid to spontaneously pin all of her hopes for survival on. "Will, I cannot believe I had not thought of that, myself, before! What a terrific idea!" She said enthusiastically, almost with an involuntary giggle, and at that she began to reiterate Will's suggestion in her message to Leon, being sure to add emphasis on her cry for Chris's help. The prison, in spite of being secluded in the dark abyss of the Pacific Ocean – at least two hundred miles from the nearest landmass, according to its coordinates – no longer seemed like such a barren and hopeless place to the teenage girl.

But no sooner did Sarah begin to fervently type again (and with a hum so naively cheerful that Will was momentarily compelled to punch the next kitten he saw around) than her companion's sardonic voice from a few feet behind took her by complete surprise. "Um, earth to Sarah! I was being facetious," he said, eliciting a puzzled frown from Sarah as she turned her face sideways to him. "What makes you believe this guy could actually find this island at all, much less the two of us alive by the time he does?"

Sarah could not understand why Will sounded so upset all of a sudden, nor why he would say this about someone she trusted so implicitly. "He would come for us," she answered defensively. "If Mr. Leon can reach him, then there's no doubt in my mind that Chris would came save me right away."

A narrow-eyed, contemptuous expression crossed Will's face. "No way," he muttered softly, although the words were clearly meant for Sarah to hear. "He wouldn't come."

Who is this kid to make these accusations so easily? Sarah wondered to herself, but all she could do was look at him in a mixture of anger and confusion. For Will, however, there was definitely only anger. "You can scarcely ever trust anyone in a world like this, anymore, without their letting you down," Will said this next sentence with soft reserve, although to emphasize his words he waved a hand in front of him, angrily clenching it in mid-swing. "Believe me; I would know."

Sarah glanced away, not knowing what she should say to admonish or comfort him, but Will did not seem to notice, for once Sarah looked back in his direction, he was already walking away, out of the room. After the door she had entered the office through slammed shut, Sarah snapped out of her pensive thoughts, and murmured to herself, "What did he mean by all of that? Chris would never … deliberately abandon me."

The ribbon-haired girl had no need to convince herself that her conviction was true. Ever since they were small children, her elder brother had always come to her rescue, no matter what – whether it was from boys who had teased or bullied her at school, whenever she had fallen and injured herself in her playful carelessness, or whenever she suffered from heartbreak. "… But there's probably more to that boy than one would normally imagine, just like he had said of me," Sarah closed her eyes and sighed. "Or perhaps he is just upset and frightened because of everything that is happening around him, and for that I certainly could not fault him."

After another few moments, sitting there in the silent glow from the PC monitor that was the room's only light, Sarah remembered to strike the "enter" button to ensure that her email to Leon had been properly sent, and uttered a short prayer that would convey her hopes of being rescued. She then rose up from the desk chair and, straightening her dress belt, the heroine reluctantly followed after Will, out through the northern office door.

Although he had failed to mention it during this most recent meeting, Sarah had at one point happened to notice the image of something like an eagle emblazoned on a small metal object in the breast pocket of Will's cloak. If this object was in fact the necessary key, he was no doubt headed straight for the north gate that they had initially been trying to find a way through. Sarah did not want to be left far behind him, for either his sake or her own.

Will stormed out of the security complex, clutching his fingers so tightly over the sharp edges of the metal, eagle-shaped emblem in his hand that he guessed they were now bleeding freely, although he could not be absolutely sure since he did not dare look down at his hand to actually see for himself. The pain itself was serving to assuage the intense anger that he was alight with, but seeing blood as the physical evidence of his anger would only fuel it, instead. And, while he may have spoken relatively calmly to Sarah before, Will was very embarrassed – and only further enraged – to know that he had acted like a thoughtless and petulant child in front of her.

In reality, he wished he could scream aloud at the very heavens for heaping this cruel fate upon him, and punch every cold, depressing stone wall or rotting set of teeth on the undead in this secluded damned abyss that was Rockfort Island until he had shattered every bone in his hand. … Then, maybe as a cripple I would have an excuse to decline raising my gun in defense against the next monster I run into, the young boy thought bitterly, staring up into the dimly-lit, cerulean midnight sky, even in spite of the still-falling rain that lanced into his upturned face. And then they could just take me. I could forget about everything, then – about Mom, what happened to her, about that girl Sarah, … about the fear hanging over this dreadful prison, everything …. Embracing death is one way to escape this island, I suppose.

Will head a distant growl as he opened the door separating the courtyard of the security building from the square-shaped alleyway that enclosed the prison barracks and dining hall (where Sarah had earlier been ambushed by the particularly gruesome zombie at the window). He quickly held up his gun in the direction of the sound with one hand, though unconsciously the other hand was still preciously clutching his and Sarah's seemingly only key to getting out of the depressing prison complex and to the other side of the island at last.

From twenty or so yards away, at the adjacent corner of the alleyway, a large, lean dog (or what must have once been a dog) stared at Will with unusually keen eyes that held an eerie blood-red glow. Will, not once forgetting his earlier anger with the ever-optimistic, ever-bright Sarah, thought sardonically that this four-legged thing watching him could only be another monster made by the so-called "virus outbreak" that his female companion had earlier speculated on. But before he resolved to pull the trigger first, the rabid-looking animal turned to the side and trotted toward the worn, grayish wall of the barracks building in the center of the area, diving underneath through a low, open slot at the base of the wall.

A short while after the sounds of the creature's footsteps eventually disappeared altogether, Will let himself fall wearily against the wire-meshed gate near the door he had just emerged from, satisfied that the animal he had just confronted wasn't intending to attack him. He turned his head after a moment to look beyond the gate, seeing the door in the northwest corner of the compound that led back to the entrance of the entire prison area, where the downed helicopter and barred metal gate was. Soon, Sarah would be heading back towards that area as well, probably, if for no other reason than to find Will and console him, from what he already knew of her. The thought, which normally should have been comforting, only served to further Will's anger, instilling a sense of shame in him. He had been wrong, and childish to say something so harsh to Sarah and then storm out of her presence, he knew that.

That girl had only tried to be of help in their situation by figuring an alternate solution to escape Rockfort Island in the conceivable event that their finding a working aircraft left in the entire place failed, and Sarah also had every right to act optimistic and hopeful in spite of the reality of things. She had not experienced the same kind of suffering that Will had upon being taken prisoner to this accursed island, and therefore he could not expect that Sarah would harbor the same negative feelings that that filled his heart right now.

… Or, then again, maybe she has suffered a tremendous loss like I have, and she simply shows greater strength in dealing with it, the boy thought, gritting his teeth with the shame of the thought. For just a tiny moment, he thought he positively hated Sarah for having played the part of the level-headed, forward-thinking voice of reason in their earlier exchange, while Will had almost lost himself, breaking down from the fear and the irrational anger at everything that was happening to him, before Sarah – being a girl – had broken down. To Will, that had been an unacceptable reverse of roles in his mind; in their first meeting, it had just seemed only appropriate to him to suddenly play the role of the valiant protector who should be looking out for the young girl who had every reason to be disoriented and frightened out of her mind in the predicament that she and Will shared, even if he was in fact still just a child like Sarah seemed to be.

The problem was that he had only been doing just that – playing the protective role. Will was depressingly aware of the truth that he and Sarah both faced every chance of being slaughtered like farm animals in an ambush by those decrepit undead creatures were they to stay together for the duration of their cooperative escape attempt, but when he had suggested against the idea by stating this reason aloud, on the inside he had been every bit as apprehensive of the thought of staying alone as Sarah had sounded. But, oh, he certainly had put on quite a show of remaining cool in their dangerous situation, hadn't he? Replaying that moment from their first meeting in his mind, Will decided that he was now thoroughly disgusted with himself. Why did he have to try to show off to her like that?

He was just grateful for one last thread of dignity and saving grace: that he had not truly sounded all that furious when he had spoken to Sarah, or, worse yet, actually broken down and cried in her presence. There was no way Will would let himself fall that low, no matter how much he had felt inclined to. If he had dared to allow himself to lose control in such a way as that while the very girl he had hoped would see him as an able pillar of strength remained perfectly collected in the face of this adversity that they both had to survive through, … well, Will couldn't imagine that he would possibly be able to regain his dignity from that. On top of that, Sarah did not seem like the kind of person who would be so disheartened at the sight of a blubbering, wailing heap of a man that she would turn him away and leave him to fend for himself, but instead, her soft heart would likely lead her to inadvertently bring Will to humiliation by pitying him and becoming overprotective like a big sister, instead.

Will stopped at the front gate to the prison complex, finally, fumbling in the breast pocket of his cloak for the eagle-shaped, silver-colored emblem while inwardly praying that he'd found the right key. I will have to apologize to her later, when I see her again – if I see her again, the boy thought, sighing as he gently placed the emblem at the indentation on the left of the two massive steel doors. It fit perfectly, just barely making contact with the perimeter of the indentation, as Will was slightly cheered to discover.

With a heavy click, gears began to turn from somewhere just beyond the gate and the two doors slowly opened inward. Will assumed that the gate would remain unlocked and Sarah would be able to follow him whenever she was ready to, so long as he left the key in its place. Just not right now, he completed his earlier thought, frowning slightly. She might be upset with me for a little while; I really did try to bring down her spirits when I said those things about personal trust. I will probably only end up looking like a fool if I try to go back and apologize to her right away.

Looking ahead at the great sloping mountainside that served as the island's western lookout point, Will, instead of gazing out at the dark blue waters of the Pacific Ocean that lied beneath a now clear moonlit sky, first immediately noticed a trio of zombies – all significantly taller than he and dressed strangely in what looked like black-ops gear – hanging about in front of an overturned military jeep. The headlights of the trashed vehicle were turned in the direction of the shambling creatures, illuminating there their bedraggled figures as they shuffled stupidly about the surrounding wreckage. Even the sounds of the rolling tide just twenty yards away to Will's left could not obscure the chilling, haunting wails that verbalized their craving for human blood.

It was a vital, primitive need that these things could not possibly ignore, the boy finally realized, cautiously raising his Desert Eagle in the zombies' direction, hoping to avoid getting their attention. Shooting them did not seem absolutely necessary, as there was a platform past a set of descending steps further left that Will could easily use to cross to the other side of the cliff face and avoid the zombies entirely, however he found that he did not want to leave Sarah to possibly perform so grim a task herself when she followed his path to this point. … I guess they really are zombies, after all – humans who have become like the undead, he thought. He admitted to himself that, at first, he had not wanted to believe what Sarah had said during their first meeting nearly an hour ago – that everything now slinking about Rockfort Island on two (crooked) legs had been an actual human being, before the outbreak of a "virus" created by none other than the corporation that was responsible for all of his current misery in the first place, Umbrella, Inc.

Will remembered that he had shot five of these miserable creatures, already, during his escape attempt. So, they were, or once had been, humans just like himself – adults at that. … A mere kid not even out of high school having killed five grown men and women, already; what have I been doing? … But perhaps it isn't really murder, after all, like I have feared, if they are already dead. Just what the hell kind of evil has Father and Umbrella, Inc. been involved in, anyway?


End file.
